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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: foundation who wrote (32090)	2/6/2003 2:26:56 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197227

If true, pretty big news....this sounds like the firms are going to be able to make their own choices. nni.nikkei.co.jp Friday, February 7, 2003 Chinese Govt To Distribute 3G Cell Phone Licenses This Year BEIJING (Nikkei)--The Chinese government plans to distribute licenses for 3G (third-generation) cellular phone services to major communications firms as early as this year, it was learned Thursday. It plans to approve licenses for TD-SCDMA, an original communications standard developed in China, as well as the WCDMA (wide-band code division multiple access) and cdma2000 standards now used in other countries. The approval is expected to trigger a total of more than 1 trillion yen in capital spending to develop the infrastructure necessary for 3G services, which enable the high-speed transmission of video. Competition is expected to intensify among the world's communications equipment manufacturers to supply the world's largest mobile phone market. The Chinese government is expected to provide 3G licenses to four firms. Besides existing cell phone service providers China Mobile Communications Corp. and China United Telecommunications Corp. (China Unicom), two fixed-line carriers -- China Telecommunications Corp. and China Netcom Corp. -- are also expected to be included in order to stimulate competition and promote lower prices. Those obtaining licenses will choose from one of three communications standards: the TD-SCDMA standard, the WCDMA standard used by NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437), U.K. giant Vodafone Group Plc and others, and the cdma2000 standard used in Japan, South Korea and other nations. China's Ministry of Information Industry has already secured the spectrum necessary to implement the three standards. Investments in building base stations, fiber-optic networks and other infrastructure are estimated to peak at an annual 9 billion dollars in 2005. The Chinese government believes that even with three different standards, service providers will be able to make profits because the Chinese market caters to more than 200 million cell phone users -- the largest number in the world. (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Friday morning edition)

To: foundation who wrote (32090)	2/6/2003 7:05:29 PM
From: rkral	Respond to of 197227

Ben, ROFLMAO. Is "Ray Le Maistre" your pen name? Ron

To: foundation who wrote (32090)	2/6/2003 9:07:39 PM
From: foundation	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 197227

Commentary 4Mobility - Beware The Hype By Andrew M. Seybold <andy@outlook4mobility.com> 6 February 2003 Wi-Fi is coming to a hotspot near you! Today there are about 4,000 hotspots and the joint venture between Intel, AT&T and several investors plans to build up to 20,000 more. Wi-Fi is in the news every day. AT&T Wireless and Wayport have joined forces and Nextel, Verizon, Sprint PCS and other wide-area voice-and-data providers are rushing to make deals to offer combinations of wide-area data and wide-area access. The hype is growing; there are fortunes to be made in the Wi-Fi business. It's the biggest thing since the onset of wireless. It's a logical extension of the Internet, and it's going to be really, really big. Even Congress and the FCC have joined in, looking for more spectrum for Wi-Fi types of communications. But Wait! I'm amazed at how many otherwise sane folks have jumped on the Wi-Fi bandwagon! They actually think that there is money to be made in hotspots. Yes, Wi-Fi is important. It's being installed in businesses and homes to provide wireless connectivity to the Internet. But there is no economic model for an independent hotspot business. Do the math---I'm sure that most of these folks haven't opened a spreadsheet. If you have to pay for back-end access for a hotspot there is no business model that works. If you already have high-speed connectivity and add an access point, you can make money. Consider this: An access point, today, costs about $250 and if you match the data capabilities of Wi-Fi to the connection, the T3 line will cost around $1,500 per month. If you sell your service through a reseller such as Boingo, you'll get $1 per connection per day. Since your costs run about $50 per day (excluding a back-end server and billing), you will need fifty users to connect to your hotspot each and every day! I have asked the folks at Cometa to share their business model with me and I'm still waiting for their response. In the meantime, there are three basic Wi-Fi communities out there. The first consists of those who seem to believe that Wi-Fi hotspots can make money as a standalone business. Next are those who believe that since the Internet is basically "free," Wi-Fi should also be free. Finally, there are wide-area network operators that believe that Wi-Fi is complementary to their wide-area systems (a view I support). The fascinating thing is that Wi-Fi revenue can be derived in two ways: from new hardware sales (i.e., WinTel devices with Centrino, access points, routers, etc.) and from hotspot service revenue. Let's compare the importance of hardware to service revenues for the wireless industry today. In the U.S. in 2002 there were 66 million handsets sold at an approximate $150 ex-factory price, or $9 billion. Service revenue in 2002 was $72 billion, eight times greater on an annual basis. Things will be different for Wi-Fi and hardware sales will generate more revenue than the service itself. Pyramid Research predicts 60 million WLAN users by 2007. Yankee Group states that 2002 public Wi-Fi revenue was $9 million (a lot of press hype for such a small number!) and it will grow to $1.6 billion by 2007; Gartner says $3.5 billion. If Intel sells 60 million Centrino chips by then at $300 per laptop, sales will be $18 billion. If 60 million users generate $1.6-$3.5 billion in service revenue, this is only $2-$5/user/month on average! Clearly, people will use Wi-Fi primarily in private settings (homes, enterprises). Said another way, public hotspots in 2002 generated as much revenue in a year as the wireless industry did in one hour. Even by 2007, the wireless industry will have more revenue in a fortnight than public hotspots will take in annually. There's no business plan for a wide-area wireless network provider at $5/month. The wide-area network is much more valuable for everywhere, always available access than a public wireless local-area network that is accessible sometime in some places. In summary, those supporting Wi-Fi win if Wi-Fi generates lots of new hardware sales. Wide-area networks win if there's sufficient new service revenue. These are mutually inclusive outcomes. Save this column and when someone offers to let you invest in the "next big thing" in wireless, hand them a copy! The Outlook 4Mobility provides its news summaries and analyses free of charge. Outlook 4Mobility products and services include Consulting Services, Mobiltorials, Newsletters, Customized Proprietary Research, Wireless Tutorials and Conferences. Please visit our web site at www.outlook4mobility.com for additional information. Copyright 2003 Outlook 4Mobility